26 June 2012

You did WHAT?!!? - The Sequel

"They haven't got brains, any of them,
only grey fluff that's blown into their head by mistake,
and they don't Think."
- The House at the Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne

The first You did WHAT?!!? post was in late March.
At the time I thought, "This could be a once a year post."
Little did I know that just three months later I would have more
than enough material for another post.

Quotes are after the jump.
I have not corrected spelling or grammar.
You have been warned. My comments are in red.

ⓑⓐⓡⓚⓘⓝⓖ ⓤⓟ ⓣⓗⓔ ⓦⓡⓞⓝⓖ ⓣⓡⓔⓔ

✿ I just spent 7 hours on Ancestry.com tracing my lineage to my 54th great-grandfather Fiacha Tolgrach MacMuireadhach, High King of Ireland, who was born in approximately 850 BC. Yes. That really happened.✿ No, no it didn't.

✿ I love this I whet back to 500 ireland on my Buchanan side of my family
I can't believe the database this site has.

✿ There's a lot of people doing Irish research who would beg to differ.
Oh right, you think Ancestry Member Trees is an accurate database. Sigh.

✿ I started working on my family tree and was able to go back 170 years on my mother's side within an hour and a half on Ancestry.com!!!
(Wow, I need to do commercials!)

✿ Because it's exactly as easy as it looks on television.
Who needs records and actual research anyway?

✿ I'm so excited to be on here!!! Started my family history couple of months and wow!!! It has been a blast!
I have one line of my husbands family back to adam and eve!
Most of the other lines are in the 1600's to 600 bc!!!!! LOVE ANCESTRY~!!!!!!✿ I'm sure everyone stuck in the 1850's is incredibly jealous or rolling on the floor laughing. One or the other.

✿ I was plugging along yesterday following the leaves telling me of another hint on my husband's family line.
I ended up with Jesus Christ being his 44th great grandfather.
Now, I have to wonder just how reliable those leaves are. Comments would be appreciated.✿ You just connected to trees that go back to Jesus. Jesus, a man whose life is documented in a book that makes no mention of him having children. I'm sure those leaves are completely reliable and based in fact.

✿ According to my latest research on ancestry.com and other sites,
Adam and Eve are my 104th great-grandparents!✿ Well if you believe The Bible they are everyone's something great-grandparents.
That doesn't mean you can prove it.

✿ Well I traced a line all the way back to Adam and Eve. I suppose it's just the trees I followed but it made me wonder if there is a religious slant to Ancestor.com. Also found that dates in B.C. thought it was British Columbia. Also had trouble making corrections because in B.C. it looks like you were born after you died and the program warned me that was a problem. There were some funny errors in terms of dates wanting to turn old dates into recent dates. I need to go back and make a lot of corrections.

✿ More than you think.

✿ When you go back to the BC dates in your family, what is the best way to write the dates for birth and death so that the leaf will hopefully populate? I get the red warning box that the date was entered wrong?

✿ There's a reason for that.

✿ I was able to get genealogy info on ancestry.com on my family going back to the time of Christ.
No need for a DNA test. I already know what it will say. A lot cheaper this way too.

✿ So many things wrong with this I don't know where to begin.

✿ Anyone else here a descendant of king William I "the Conquerer"
I've met several people in random places who were also descendants of him.

✿ My wife searched my fam past on my mothers side, n I found out I have an increadible fam tree. William The Conqueror was my 37th grandfather, Constantine The Great was one of my grandfathers as well, its amazing what I found out. All kinds of kings and queens and royals, searched back to the 1200's so far. Amazing.

✿ All that's missing is "in an hour" or "in a week".

✿ A relative of [name withheld]'s searched ancestors back to a King Edward II or III so I started searching too. Never found that king, but just kept going back out of curiosity to see how far I could go.
Much to my surprise, I found CHARLEMAGNE. Further exploration took me to an ancestor born in 791 BC before I reached a dead end. I'm not sure how much stock I put in this info,
but I find it pretting amazing that there's that much in ancestry.com's database

✿ "Further exploration"? That's the first time I've heard copying trees referred to as "exploration".

✿ I have been using Ancestry for over 2 years nearly every day and I have now found over 26,650 members that go back in some cases to the year 67. I never would have been able to do this with out Ancestry.com. Thank you for being there for those of us who want to research our history. Lucky for me our ancestors for the most part were famous enough for there to be records of them, Kings from nearly every European nation. Plus in America we find some signed the Declaration of Independence. I never would have even a clue about these relations with out Ancestry, if you want to research your family tree, go to Ancestry

✿ "the year 67"? Please tell me that's a typo.

✿ You what would really be awesome?? If you let people see EVERYTHING free for a few weeks.

✿ What part of "14-day free trial" do you not understand?

✿ I don't need ancestry at the moment because my tree is complete.

✿ Complete? Everyone with a "complete" tree raise your hand.

On a thread about DNA:

✿ I have a strong royal bloodline, it says cleopatra was my 72 nd ggm, uther pendragon, my 37 th ggf,
the list is huge and goes on n on etc.. I think I would just like to know if its all true??

✿ Uther Pendragon? Do you expect to add stories about Merlin and Archimedes on your tree? Let me save you some money, it's not true.

Message through Facebook that I'm assuming was supposed to be about genealogy.
This is the entire message:

✿ my be family mary kovar grama

This last one is my favorite. I doubt it will ever be topped...

✿ so you did not say anying about the 6 time I got off Kickyoff! & would I like to no what your doing about it. I had my I.T. look at me like I had lost it. It to tell me it me it was not me but YOU! Thank for all the time I have put in to this to find out it was YOU! !!!! by the way you mead to spell thing wright on this USA did WAS NOT KNOW IN AD it was not Around there was no rome emperor. I have been fix all the number & Date. I should work for you. If we are doing your work what are you doing???

✿ "by the way you mead to spell thing wright" SERIOUSLY?!!?
"I should work for you." Considering that is the only coherent part of your post, umm, NO.
I thought someone was trying to be funny when they commented on this post and mentioned Wasilla High School. Then I looked at the person's profile. The person had indeed graduated from Wasilla High in Alaska. *smh*

Also, people who say their trees are "complete" are hilarious. I've never understood quite what they mean. I guess if they don't care at all about "sideways" genealogy, and every one of their direct lines has reached a point where you can't reasonably go back any further (eg. with Acadian ancestors, you usually can't go further than the original immigrants)? I guess there's a point at which I would call my tree "complete", but I doubt I'll get there in a lifetime.

I'm chasing the goal of a 'complete' tree by putting limitations on what I include. I've limited myself to seven generations (starting from myself), as that is when a couple of lines hit brick walls. I also include the siblings of my direct ancestors but not their children. I do this so I can keep my records and source citations in order and so that I can move on to finding out more personal information about the individuals in my tree.

Obviously my tree will never be 'complete' as I need to constantly fact check and verify the information I have, but I plan to reach a point where I can say "This is my tree, and I am not actively searching for any more people"

thank you for making me laugh out loud (cats all took off)and realize i am NOT alone when so many of my facebook friends CLAIM THEY ALREADY HIRED some kiosk person in a mall saying they are ROYALITY, NOBLEMEN yada yada...i started feeling alone in the first year of my research because i can't get past the mid 1700's and STILL no kings and queens! RIGHT NOW.. a year later.. and still no CASTLES left to me by my 14 th cousin who came over on the MAYFLOWER and invented the internet...sigh

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Barking has been "deemed offensive to [Ancestry.com's] brand" and is banned from their Facebook pages. In Ancestry's "Community" comments with links to Barking are censored.Dear Emma, Hannah, Jemima, Mary Jane, and all of her other personalities agree that I use "the banner of 'education' to actually mock, deride and laugh at [Ancestry's] own customers" and I "can make [my] point concerning tree inaccuracies & cock-ups and their effect on our 'hints' system without being downright unpleasant and sarcastic about it."Allen says, “your cute little blog is a waste of bandwidth at best”Ann thinks I'm "...copying and pasting mistakes on trees and calling it a blog" and that my readers are "mean-spirited people...who like to have a laugh at the expense of others."Sue was really offended by the “...continual stream of sarcasm and constant poking fun...What a nasty taste in my mouth your blog left me with. Unpleasant, sarcastic and jeering at people who you obviously see as your intellectual inferiors. Won't be reading that again.”And finally from Les, "You truly are a horrible woman, pointing out mistakes is one thing but blatantly laughing and taking the p is completely out of order."

Why?

Researching our family histories we are bound to make mistakes. Hopefully we are quick to correct them. Unfortunately some people refuse to read or think before adding information to their family trees. Some trees have been abandoned so the errors are there for eternity. Here we will laugh, mock and shake our heads at the carelessness, stupidity and/or ignorance of those errors.All examples are taken from trees published online.I'll also post tips occasionally, though the messed up trees are a great example of what NOT to do. If you have an online tree to suggest for a future post please send me a link: buwtree(at)gmail(dot)com

The Fine Print

2. Content: Barking Up the Wrong Tree is responsible for the content of this site, not including visitor comments. Barking Up the Wrong Tree reflects the personal views and opinions of Loretta Gillespie.

3. Credit: Credit is not given to tree owners to protect the clueless. A tree owner who discovers their tree on this site should correct their mistakes so no one else realizes they were once a clickophile.

4. Accuracy and Validity: While there are helpful pointers on Barking Up the Wrong Tree a majority of posts are intended to be humorous. The disastrous trees are copied exactly as they appear on Ancestry.com. These trees are being used to show others what NOT to do.

5. Images: Attempts are made to source images used despite the fact that the trees they are taken from do not include source information.

6. Comments: Barking Up the Wrong Tree will exercise its right to delete comments which are deemed to be spam, offensive, childish or just plain stupid.

7. Liability: The content at Barking Up the Wrong Tree is not to be taken as fact nor absolute. Barking Up the Wrong Tree contains posts that are humorous and posts that are research tips. Barking Up the Wrong Tree is not responsible for anyone who cannot tell the difference between the two. The sites that Barking Up the Wrong Tree links to via hyperlinks are not under its control. Those sites are responsible for the content of those sites. If you do not find the humor on Barking Up the Wrong Tree to your taste then stop reading. If you choose instead to send an email to the owner it may be published on Barking Up the Wrong Tree and mocked publicly.

Who?

I'm a freelance musician in a large Midwestern city. Genealogy is my addiction. I am not a professional genealogist and everything I write should be taken with a grain of salt (preferably with a shot of tequila).